Monthly Archives: March 2014

Though I was completely exhausted from WIAD the day before, I was energized by the opportunity to meet new people and gain new skills. We casually formed teams based on a variety of strengths and job titles. My team contained a front-end developer, a graphic artist, a web designer and seasoned marketing guru. and they were all great.

UX Hackathon took place at General Assembly in Santa Monica and was an entire day filled with UX. My team was called “Interrobang.” What is that? I did not really know either. Here’s more information on Interrobang.

The day after WIAD (World Information Architecture Day) I participated in another day-long User Experience event. This time, I was not a passive observer who had organized the event. I was a hands-on, jump-all-in User Experience designer.

We were assigned the timely topic of Healthcare, so we chose to redesign the Covered California website. We did not feel that there was a clear call to action, so we wanted to simplify the interaction of the website a bit.

We were very tight on time, so we banged through a lot of brainstorming sessions, mind mapping and creative flow to narrow down the scope of the project. Just before the deadline, the team created a few valuable assets for our 3-minute presentation. Some are shown below:

Information Architecture

User Flow

Redesigned Homepage

UX Hackathon was an exciting experience and I learned a lot about working in teams, working under very tight deadlines, lean UX and creating deliverables in less than a day.

About a month ago, I had the privilege to not only participate, but also help organize a global conference on a local level. It was an invaluable learning experience for me. I made new contacts, gained new skills and helped produce an event that would best be described as a success.

Takeaways:

Weekly meetings keep the group on track.

Always communicate with the group so everyone is on the same page.

If you think you are planning early enough, you probably are not. Work ahead of schedule.

Holidays and time off make keeping things moving difficult.

Anticipate problem and plan for them in advance.

Secure the venue ASAP because so many other factors are determined by booking the venue.

Organizing an event like WIAD taught me the value of collaboration and team work.

World IA Day is about bringing the information architecture community together. Los Angeles was selected to participate in this global event that took place in 24 cities, 15 countries, spanning 6 continents. Our local event hosted over 170 attendees, and there were nearly 3,000 participants globally, all one the same day!

My role as Project Manager is the overall responsibility for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and organizing teams and over 30 volunteers, participating in the development of this conference. http://worldiaday.org.

As the part of Project Manager for WIAD, I organized the Los Angeles chapter of the world-wide event. Groups post notes as part of a brainstorming session.